"Know them," said Morgan, swinging himself astride a chair and folding his arms upon the back, while Rutherford perched upon a large writing table, and Houston leaned against his long desk, with his arms folded, "Know them, I should think I ought to. I worked in the Silver City office as bookkeeper for a year before coming out here, and six months of that time I boarded in Blaisdell's family; and as his wife hates Rivers' wife, and couldn't say enough about her, I knew about as much of one family as the other before I came away." "Does Mr. Blaisdell try to impress his better half with a sense of his intellectual superiority, as he does the rest of his fellow mortals?" asked Rutherford. "If he ever did," answered Morgan, "he must have got bravely over it some time ago; she treats him with a contempt that would have cured him of that habit. I've sometimes thought that the reason he swells so much out among people is because he's so unmercifully snubbed at home." "I see," said Rutherford, "just a natural effort to keep his self-respect in equilibrium." "Has he many children?" inquired Houston. "Well, no," said Morgan, "not many, only fifteen." "Only fifteen!" said Houston, in astonishment, while Rutherford exclaimed, "Oh, come off now, you're joking!" "No joking about it," said Morgan seriously, "I took the old man's word for it. I tried several times to count 'em, but had to give it up, it seemed that every day I saw a new one. Some of 'em are as old as I; you see this is his third wife, and some of the children are older than she." "I think," said Rutherford, "I'd like a wife younger than my children." "He seems to," replied Morgan, "they're as spooney as can be, when they're not quarreling." "Oh, deliver me!" said Rutherford, "I don't want to hear any more about them. How about that other man, Rivers? He hasn't such a surplus of children and wives, has he?" "Well," said Morgan slowly, "I guess if his children could all be got together, there'd be more of 'em than of Blaisdell's, and he has full as many wives, only, in his case, they are all living." "Great Scott!" said Rutherford, "is he a Mormon?" Morgan shook his head, and Houston said: "Morgan, I think in your efforts to be entertaining, you are drawing slightly on your imagination, thinking that we are fresh enough to believe anything you choose to tell us." "No, it's all true, whether you believe it or not. That man left a wife and family of children somewhere in New York State, more than ten years ago, and ran away with another woman; they have five or six children, and here, about three years ago, since I came here, he got his divorce from the first woman, and married this one. Then he spent last winter in San Francisco, and it seems now, that he circulated around there under another name,--and his name is no more Rivers, than mine is Jenks,--and passed himself off for an unmarried man, and now there's a woman there has entered suit against him, for breach of promise."